A video announcing the launch of a new memecoin by the Central African Republic (CAR) President Faustion-Archange Touadera has come under scrutiny after multiple AI deepfake detection tools flagged it as potentially fake.
The announcement, posted on President Touadera’s official X account on Sunday February 9, 2025, described the memecoin as an “experiment” aimed at fostering national development and enhancing CAR’s presence on the global stage.
The token debuted on the Pump.fun platform at 10:25 p.m. UTC on the same day, and its official website features a video of Touadera alongside a tokenomics breakdown outlining the distribution of its total supply. Notably, the memecoin rapidly surged to a peak market capitalization of $530 million.
Doubts about the authenticity of the video emerged after AI detection models produced conflicting results. The free deepfake verification tool Deepware flagged it as suspicious, with one of its models determining an 82% likelihood that the footage was artificially generated. However, other models, including Avatrify, did not detect it as a deepfake. While some members of the crypto community believe the launch to be legitimate, others suspect the President’s X account may have been compromised.
Further skepticism arose after cybersecurity experts examined the domain registration process for the token’s official website, car.meme. On February 10, Yokai Ryujin, founder of Unrevealed XYZ, pointed out that the registration through Namecheap appeared uncharacteristic of a government initiative, having been created only three days prior. Following this revelation, Namecheap suspended what it called an “abusive service,” though the website remained accessible at the time of publication.
Community members have raised additional concerns about the circumstances surrounding the launch. Some noted that the announcement, posted at midnight local time, was unusual for a government initiative. Others questioned the language used in the tweet, which was exclusively in English despite French being CAR’s official language. The dedicated X account for the memecoin, @Carmeme_news, was later suspended, though President Touadera claimed to be in discussions with X to have it reinstated.
The controversy surrounding the CAR memecoin comes amid a wave of high-profile hacks, with scammers recently breaching the X accounts of former Malaysian Prime Minister and the Solana-based decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter to promote similar cryptocurrency scams.
Data from DexScreener indicates that the CAR’s distribution generally aligns with the official tokenomics. Approximately 33.31% of the supply is stored in one wallet and 25% in another, while two additional wallets contain 9.81% and 8.39%, respectively, with one potentially representing the portion designated for charitable initiatives. However, a promised 20% liquidity allocation has yet to be added to a liquidity pool, raising further questions about the project’s legitimacy.
If you want to read more news articles like this, visit DeFi Planet and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and CoinMarketCap Community.
“Take control of your crypto portfolio with MARKETS PRO, DeFi Planet’s suite of analytics tools.”
